BAKERSFIELD, CA – There is a solemnness to the surveillance video. A buzz-hum enters the brain. A taut feeling in the abdomen. I watch at the dining room table from the edge of my seat. My laptop has become a window to black-and-white ghost movements. A man dies. I know this. His name is David Sal Silva. He is 33 years old. There is violence in the video. I know this too. But there is no blood and gore that I can see. The camera is too far away. It’s too grainy. Too dark. Only ethereal swings of nightsticks, some of them two-handed, as if ghostly boys pushing and shoving each other out of the way, are gathering around a T-ball set, smacking a ball over and over, all hoping for a homerun.​

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Silva is in the dark wearing a blue shirt and tan cargo shorts, white socks and black shoes. He’s already been escorted away from the Mary K. Shell Center and is lying on the corner of Palm and Flower streets. A security guard watches him from the hospital parking lot—the same guard who escorted him away from the substance abuse center where he sought help.​

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Soon, a sheriff’s deputy knuckle rubs Silva on the chest to wake the large man. The violence begins. This is the initial point of confusion for the rest of us. Silva is brought to his feet by a deputy, after Silva falls on his face, only to immediately have the same deputy decide to break him back down to the ground.​